The departure from the dead plane came quickly, especially since Leon had practically locked himself in his quarters and trained with the Great Black Dragon. They mostly practiced with black flame, but in such ways that didn’t so much increase Leon’s skill as give the Great Black Dragon more of an idea of how skillful Leon already was. When they were done, the dragon didn’t have much good to say about Leon, but he at least didn’t disparage Leon’s skill.

He left Leon with the promise that he would visit him in his soul realm at regular intervals, not staying long enough for Leon to press too much for information on the Dragon Clans or anything else he wanted to know. That left him alone with what he’d quietly started to call the Ancestor Gem. He spent several hours studying the thing until word came to him that his forces had finished securing the body of the Souleater.

Leon wasn’t quite willing to store the thing in his soul realm, so he simply locked it away in his private quarters and doubled the guard of Tempest Knights on Storm Herald. He wanted to chat with the Thunderbird about all that had just happened, but he didn’t have much time for that, either, as she’d come to the unpleasant realization that she needed to recover in the Mists of Chaos after using the gem, postponing their chat for the foreseeable future. Leon could only hope that she was ready to speak once he returned to the Nexus.

With nothing left to do on the plane, Leon gave the order to depart. The plane was still strategically significant as it represented a stopover point on the way to the Great Strand of Rhea, the supercluster of millions of planes in which a third of the old Thunderbird Clan holdings lay. However, without a native population that could support fleets passing through, this plane would need significant investment in order to become the staging point that Leon needed it to be.

Regardless, as Leon’s task force returned to the Yun Cluster, he was satisfied. Deserted though it was, that just made it easier for him to claim as far as he was concerned. Combined with the rest of the campaign, in not much more than a year, he’d added thirteen planes to his Kingdom—at least, on paper.

He’d only been gone for a few days, but the return to Jiaxing was still fairly nerve-wracking. He almost expected to find the plane in chaos without him there to make sure the three-plane cluster stayed in check. Fortunately, his worst fears did not prove accurate as the deals and fleets—especially the latter—he’d left behind had been enough to keep the peace amongst the cluster’s powers-that-be.

In truth, the conquest of the Yun Cluster had gone much quicker than he’d anticipated; it hadn’t even been two weeks since he’d left the Nexus on this next leg of his conquest. The speed of his victory was amazing, but that also still represented a problem in that Artorion wasn’t yet ready to send a garrison force to the Yun Cluster to keep the peace. As a result, Leon spent another week on Jiaxing, interfacing with the local powers and making sure that they knew he wouldn’t replace them if they remained loyal, and that despite his magnanimity, he was still in charge and that he expected them to keep the peace and pay their taxes.

Once that was over, he left three fleets behind and set course for the Nexus. He stopped at the Demetrion Cluster for several days, ensuring that the administration he’d established there was being properly built, and after satisfying himself in that respect, set out on the last leg of the journey back to Artorion.

Even though he was heading home earlier than he’d expected, he still only had about nine months left until the Belicenian Games, and he wanted to make sure he was ready for such a prestigious event. If he wanted to claim the mantle of Storm King within the next few million years, he’d need the support of the Storm Lords, most of whom he was certain would be attending the Games.

His attendance with Princess Miuna might complicate matters, but he was certain that he might make some friends and allies there.

Even that, however, would likely pale in comparison to what the Ancestor Gem could gain his Kingdom. The Great Black Dragon’s acknowledgment was a surprise, to be sure, but he was grateful for it. He entertained fantasies about making hundreds of allies on Belicenion, winning in both events his Kingdom would participate in, and then heading to Arushae after returning to the Nexus to find his mother.

He knew things wouldn’t be that simple. They couldn’t be that simple. But whatever challenge he was going to face, he would be ready for it. He was going to restore the Thunderbird Clan no matter what. Even if the stars themselves fell upon him, he would overcome the challenge and accomplish his goals. With every step forward he took, he could feel his inevitable victory coming ever closer…

---

Duty was a heavy thing.

For a long time, his duty had given him purpose, shown him the path through the endless dark of the universe, seen him through quandaries and quagmires uncountable, and delivered unto him a crown of unparalleled power and majesty.

Now, it settled about his shoulders like chains, cold and stifling. The demands of duty were great, and though in his position he could’ve insulated himself, he believed that he had to face his duty, to understand the gravity of it, to take the grief and the pain and forge something new, something great for all of humanity from it.

His certainty didn’t make it any easier. All around him, the air hummed with power. It bent and waved in an endless mirage as his power roiled around him in great gusts, and no one could get close.

This didn’t clear the air, however, as much as he would’ve liked it. Sickly sweet iron reached his nose, as did smoke and the whole panoply of odors inherent to battlefields. If he stuck out his tongue, he was certain he could taste the blood on the air as clearly as he could hear the screaming.

The smell and the sounds were awful, and his heart broke a thousand times over. Such pain was but a fraction of that he was inflicting upon the inhabitants of this plane, however.

He hovered above an enormous city, hanging in the air like a radiant god, shining like a new sun. The boldest of mages below threw magic at him, but he didn’t need to move, his aura was enough to keep him safe let alone the myriad of other means at his disposal.

The city wound through the desert like an engorged snake, a gleaming river of silver surrounded by golden dunes stretching as far as the mortal eye could see.

All of it was aflame. The force of the fighting sent the smoke rolling across the dunes, but he could still smell the heat and the death.

He saw ranks of soldiers in gleaming armor, horses embossed on their uniform-like cuirasses, falling by the score before the great legions pouring through the streets. Their stand was brave but futile against the forces arrayed against them. Their power was akin to matches before the stars themselves.

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This was all the force that this Empire could muster in its defense. This was its death rattle, the last gasp before life was forever snuffed out.

A good thing, his duty told him. A good thing. Necessary.

Men roared defiantly as they were cut down. Women screamed in fear and pain as they were put to the sword. Children whimpered as they followed suit. No mercy was shown. No liberties were taken. The men marching through the streets were as ruthless as they were efficient, the impassive faces on the silver masks they wore showing more emotion than they surely felt. The extermination of this plane was their duty, and so they carried it out without hesitation.

Around the city burned dozens of wrecks. Machines of both land and air, some approaching the level of true arks, but none capable of standing against the mighty fleet that had come to their plane. Thousands of war arks choked the sky more thickly than the smoke. Their deadly weapons were turned upon other targets and fired incessantly. Every city upon the plane burned as brightly as the capital.

Every soul was marked for death.

He sighed through his nose, his handsome face carefully impassive. He wore no silver mask. As… dutiful as this task was, he had no desire to hide his face. He still had to project calm and confidence, however, and so couldn’t let his pain-wracked soul shift his expression, no matter how loudly the people below screamed for mercy, for salvation, for an end to the suffering he had brought to their plane.

As he watched the slaughter, a man approached him. He radiated an aura of the fourteenth-tier—one of the strongest mages in the universe, and he approached with a bowed head and humble demeanor. The silver mask he wore was almost blood red in the light of fires that reached skyward, as if the flames too wished an escape from the butchery in the streets.

“Oh Radiant Sun,” the man called out, his voice resonating slightly within his mask, “will you fulfill the demands of Khosrow? King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Radiant Anushirawan! Shine the light of Khosrow’s Law upon this plane!”

He barely spared the Lord another look. The silver-masked man was but an Anax, and not even one of his. Anushirawan momentarily wondered how irked the man was at being used as a messenger, but he didn’t spend long contemplating the matter as the crackling of flames and screaming of people forced him back to reality.

For the briefest of moments, his eyes flickered in the direction of a certain ark. It was an ugly thing, but what it lacked in looks it made up for in firepower. Lightning-blackened metal, twisted and fluted, flecked with weapon emplacements that flashed with every shot—this thing which looked more like a flying mass of pipes seemed to sparkle as hundreds of weapons fired at anything that moved and most things that didn’t within the city.

Sequestered deep within, where the stench of blood couldn’t reach, where smoke couldn’t drift, where screams couldn’t echo, sat the conductor of this malignant massacre.

Kamran.

Insulated from the horrors of extermination, far from the pain and the fear. For him, this was but an exercise of power, a brief flex forgotten almost as soon as it was over.

But Anushirawan could feel the fifteenth-tier mage’s eyes upon him. Their gaze burned as hot as lightning, scouring his back, gleaming with expectation.

He was waiting, watching, judging him. Anushirawan was the Sun King, the Elemental King of Light, and yet it was Kamran, who had yet to seize such a prestigious title, who was passing judgment.

Disgust in his partner magnified, but only a single errant thought ran through his mind to do something about it.

“The Law is clear, Your Radiance,” the silver-masked fourteenth-tier mage said. “The blood of Beasts must be spilled! The contamination of humanity must be ended!”

Still, Anushirawan remained motionless. He saw one of the silver-masked soldiers find a family. The father charged with a club; he was impaled upon half a dozen spears in less than three paces. The mother shielded her children beneath her; spears still slick with her husband’s blood opened her throat, parted her ribs, and skewered her heart. Her body was thrown away like trash, revealing two young children, a girl of no more than eight years and a boy of less than six. In the boy, Anushirawan could see an expression of the plane’s progenitor, the Great Stallion: a pair of horse-like ears stuck out of his hair.

The girl sputtered and screamed, her hands over her ears and her eyes squeezed shut. Tears flowed like rivers down her cheeks, cutting through the dirt and grime that the burning city had stuck upon her. The boy clung to her arm, silent and still, his eyes locked upon the still forms of his parents.

Neither of them saw their end come, but Anushirawan did. He heard the girl scream in terror and pain. The boy made hardly a sound as the spear broke past his ribs and sundered his heart, but his eyes turned upward in silent accusation. They remained open as the silver-masked soldier removed his spear and conjured fire, setting the family ablaze. Anushirawan stared into the boy’s lifeless eyes until he was ash.

His duty was heavy. He couldn’t watch. He had to act.

As the silver-masked Anax beside him made to speak once again, Anushirawan retrieved Starfall from his soul realm and raised it to his right until it pointed just over the horizon. It was the height of the day, the sky bright above the smoke. But in the great blue expanse, stars began to glimmer. Dozens, then hundreds, thousands, millions. Magic shone from him like sun rays, and the air itself in the city trembled.

Anushirawan slashed Starfall diagonally, his power peaking for less than a second. Moments later, the glimmering stars fell upon the plane. Beams of light thicker than arks fell in sheets denser than rain. They battered mountains into dust, carved valleys into the earth, boiled the rivers and oceans, and rendered every living thing his light touched into little more than vapor.

His power didn’t touch the arks or the silver-masked warriors. All others were ended quickly, as quickly as he could. The one mercy he could afford to show.

What few formations of men desperately trying to save their people were torn asunder. Those who were hiding from the monstrous onslaught were found and killed. His light illuminated the deepest pits and banished the darkest shadows; no place on the plane was safe from him.

In the seconds that followed, silence reigned. The silver-masked warriors took to the skies, their task done. The plane had been scoured of life. The plants, the people, all gone. The cities were ground to dust, all evidence that man had once called this place home annihilated.

All traces that this plane could once have supported human life—of life of any kind—were gone. A plane where once rivers flowed and forests stretched, where animals grazed in the plains and frolicked through the trees, where fish swam in great oceans and birds freely soared through the sky. Now, all that greeted Anushirawan was dust and stone. Hundreds of millions of people were gone in the blink of an eye. All of the animals joined them in death.

He could still hear the screaming. He could still smell the smoke and the blood and all the other unpleasantness of death. The stench clogged his nostrils, overpowering all else.

The silver-masked Anax left him alone, and alone the Sun King remained for long minutes as the enormous fleet assembled by Kamran regrouped and prepared to leave, their duty fulfilled. A plane ruled by an Inherited Bloodline. Now a dead plane.

But the job wasn’t done yet. Thousands of Beast bloodlines existed throughout the universe, and more were created all the time. It was a duty that would never truly be fulfilled, no matter how zealously Khosrow’s Law was upheld. For now, however, the eyes of the more fanatical turned away, and Anushirawan could breathe again.

He would remember this day for the rest of his life. The weight of his duty, the cost of it. But the Law was clear. This was needed for the salvation of mankind. Those who lay with beasts and their progeny could not be allowed to live.

The Sun King took one final look at the dead plane before he began to rise. The screaming seemed to fade as he put distance between himself and the plane, but he knew it would never disappear entirely. For the moment, though, he could focus on other things, on more pleasant events.

Kamran’s fleet, tens of thousands of arks, many of which were thousands of feet long, turned back toward the Nexus and began to activate their jump drives, the bluish-black spheres of spatial magic taking them away from this backwater plane, no others aware of the extermination just carried out here.

Anushirawan turned in a different direction, toward Belicenion. Nine months separated him from the start of his Games, but he had much work to do to prepare.

He shot off into the Void, leaving the plane behind, but the shame of his actions clung to him, its claws sinking deep into him, never to let go.